Archive for the ‘jonny venters’ tag

Jose Fernandez was (arguably) the biggest name to go down to TJ surgery in 2014. Photo via thestar.com

When we hit 20 MLB pitchers going under the knife for blown Ulnar Collateral Ligaments (UCL) on the 2014 season, I posted on possible reasons for the epidemic. By the time the season was over, more than 90 players in professional baseball (and a handful of marquee amateurs, including two first round picks and our own) had gone under the knife for blown UCLs/Tommy John surgery. 2014 was the year of the elbow ligament, no question, in terms of volume and awareness.

This post lists all the major league pitchers who had the surgery this year, with links to the announcements as they happened, along with stills of the pitchers’ mechanics to do a quickie thumb nail analysis of mechanics and whether there’s a relationship to the injury. At the bottom i’ve captured any significant news related to the surgery, MLB being proactive in preventing the injuries, and other TJ news.

First, here’s the complete Tommy John fall-out for the year for major league arms. According to the great injury tracking links below, no less than 91 players in all levels of pro baseball had the surgery in calendar year 2014, of which 29 were MLB-experienced pitchers.

Masahiro Tanaka, diagnosed with torn UCL 7/10/14; a huge blow, nearly as big of an announcement as Jose Fernandez’ if he has to get TJ surgery. No announcement yet though that he’s having the surgery. But, as of 8/5/14 he’s re-habbing and experiencing no pain while throwing, and eventually was able to avoid the surgery. For now.

10 of these 29 pitchers are getting the surgery for the 2nd time. Wow.

Here’s links to other notable non-MLB pitchers who have gotten the surgery as well in 2014:

Jamison Taillon: the Pirates #1 pitching prospect and one of the best pitching prospects in the game. Diagnosed 4/6/14, surgery 4/9/14.

Danny Rosenbaum: Nats AAA starter and long-time farmhand. Surgery 5/8/14. Tough for Rosenbaum because he’s a MLFA this coming off-season, now facing a very uncertain future.

Miguel Sano: one of the best prospects in the minors, had the surgery 3/12/14. He’s not a pitcher, and he initially injured his arm playing in the Dominican Winter League, but it still costs Minnesota one of its best prospects.

Jeff Hoffman, ECU’s right handed starter and consensus top 5 pick in the 2014 draft, hurt his arm and was diagnosed on 5/8/14. He dropped 5 places from his likely drafting spot by the Cubs at #4, which cost him about $X in slot dollars. We talked about whether the Nats (picking at #18) were a likely suitor for him at the time of the injury in early May.

Erick Fedde, UNLV’s friday starter and projected mid-1st round pick, was diagnosed two days after Hoffman on 5/10/14. He dropped perhaps 8 places from his estimated drafting spot of mid 1st round and was picked by Washington. His injury didn’t really cost him much in slot money thanks to the Nats paying over-slot.

Our own Matthew Purke, diagnosed and set for TJ surgery 5/29/14 after really struggling out of the gate this year for Harrisburg. Purke may face an options crunch by the time he’s done re-habbing, thanks to his MLB deal signed on draft-day. (Update: the Nats never let him get there, releasing him on 11/14/14).

Chad Billingsleyhaving flexor tendon surgery while trying to recover from his 2013 TJ surgery. This isn’t counted as a TJ, but is noteworthy.

Not a pitcher, but key Orioles player Matt Wieters had to have TJ surgery on 6/18/14.

Conclusions? None. They’re all over the road. TJ injuries this year happened to those thought to have “dangerous” mechanics and clean mechanics. TJ injuries happened to the league’s harder throwers (Rondon, Ventors, Fernandez) and its softest throwers (Medlen and Arroyo, both of whom are usually at the absolute bottom of the league in terms of fastball velocity). Starters and relievers, no discernable pattern.

I think all you can conclude is this: if you throw a lot of innings, you’re more prone to injury. I know, ground breaking analysis.

Other notable/interesting links I’ve collected on the topic over the length of the season:

Yahoo’s Tim Brown interviewed Zack Greinke (published 5/15/14)who says he made a conscious decision to throw fewer sliders, noting that he could really feel it in his elbow after starts where he threw too many. This tends to support the notion that sliders make a difference.

Jerry Crasnick interviewed commissioner Bud Seligon 5/15/14 and Selig said he’s “concerned.” Great! On a scale of “Resolve Oakland/San Jose territorial rights” concerned to “Resolve MASN dispute” concerned, I wonder where he falls? Maybe he’ll form a blue-ribbon committee that can meet for several years without arriving at any solutions.

Stephania Bell‘s articles on the spate of TJ injuries: from April and again in May.

The American Sports Medicine Institute (led by Dr. James Andrews) released a statement on 5/28/14 on the issue of Tommy John surgeries (as pointed out by David Schoenfield and/or Craig Calcaterra in late may and/or Jerry Crasnick on the same day). Their basic point: don’t throw with max effort.

Dr. James Andrews announced that he’s releasing an app to help keep pitchers healthy. Per screen shots, it will be relatively simple and will have pitch counts, age and rest days calculate a max number of pitchers that a player can throw today.

An interesting analysis of Kansas City’s Yordano Ventura after he was diagnosed with a non-UCL related elbow injury in May.

Thoughtful piece from Dirk Hayhurst about the quest for velocity and the value of soft-throwers like Mark Buehrle.

CBS’s Jon Heyman breaks the news that #1 overall pick Brady Aikenmay have an “elbow ligament issue,” thus holding up the signing. Wow. As we all know, this turned into a big-time stalemate, the non-signing of Aiken (which cascaded down and cost the Astros their 5th round pick too), possible grievances, possible lawsuits, all sorts of NCAA eligibility concerns, and a whole big black-mark for the Astros organization. All over $1.5M. Remember; this is the same team that gave $30M last off-season to 5th starter Scott Feldman.

Kris Medlen is as close to an automatic win as there exists now. Should the Braves use him? Photo unknown via totalprosports.com

I was listening to the excellent Fangraphs.com podcast last week, hosted by Carson Cistulli and featuring excellent writer Dave Cameron, and Cameron (who writes the blog USS Mariner in addition to his Fangraphs work) proposed an interesting theory for handling a pitching staff in the wild card game.

Conventional wisdom states that the Atlanta Braves (who I’m using as an example here because I think they’re the best bet to advance in a wild card game right now) would throw their unbeatable ace Kris Medlen in the play-in game. Reasoning: you can’t leave your best starter on the bench in a do-or-die game; you have to try to win it. So you throw your best guy to win that game and then deal with the consequences the next round.

(Tangent: I’m pretty sure MLB assumed that a side effect of adding a second pitcher would result in a weakened wild card winner, which benefits the #1 seeded divisional winner and gives them an advantage going forward. I certainly talked about this as a benefit when I lauded the 2nd wild card in this space earlier this summer. But the roster loopholes in the wild card game that can be exploited as explained below and the first two home games on the road for the higher seeded team are both major issues that need to be addressed asap).

But what if the Braves decided to try something unconventional instead of just throwing Medlen?? Because of the scheduling of the playoffs, the wild card game winner will get a day off between Friday 10/5/12 and Sunday 10/7/12, meaning they could empty their bullpen and have every single guy down there throw his typical limit of innings and still have everyone available on Sunday for the first game of the Divisional Series. So Cameron’s theory is; don’t start your ace; start your bullpen guys, who (especially in Atlanta’s case) are more efficient at getting guys out on a short-term basis. Then, after a few innings of relievers throwing, you take a look at the game and decide then if your starter needs to go in.

What if Atlanta were to start some bullpen guys instead of Medlen in a play-in game, then suddenly Atlanta jumps out to a 4-0 lead. You could then put in a different starter (say, the #3 starter, who could throw on 10/5/12 then be ready on normal rest for game 3 of the NLDS on Wednesday 10/10/12) to finish out the game. You could keep some bullpen guys in reserve to stamp out any fires, but in theory you could manage a game in this fashion and preserve your best starter. Plus, a major loop-hole in the playoff roster specification rules means that Atlanta could field a far different roster for just this wild card game than for the rest of the playoffs. They could leave off basically their entire rotation and add in 4 more bullpen arms and continue parading out fresh arms all night like it was a spring training game.

Here’s a look at Atlanta’s top 7 relievers right now (stast as of 9/24/12):

Name

W

L

W-L%

ERA

G

IP

H

R

ER

BB

SO

ERA+

WHIP

Craig Kimbrel

2

1

0.667

1.08

58

58.1

25

7

7

14

106

374

0.669

Cristhian Martinez

5

4

0.556

4.04

51

71.1

79

33

32

17

64

100

1.346

Chad Durbin

4

1

0.8

3.19

73

59.1

51

25

21

28

46

127

1.331

Jonny Venters*

5

4

0.556

3.46

63

54.2

57

23

21

28

65

117

1.555

Eric O’Flaherty*

3

0

1

1.82

61

54.1

46

14

11

19

45

222

1.196

Luis Avilan*

0

0

2.25

27

32

26

9

8

10

28

181

1.125

Cory Gearrin

0

1

0

1.62

19

16.2

15

3

3

4

19

254

1.14

There’s some serious arms in that bullpen. Kimbrel is obviously a known quantity and his 106 K’s in 58 1/3 innings are ridiculous. But it also means he’s almost guaranteed to shut down whoever he may be pitching against (heard a great stat about Kimbrel recently; he has not pitched an inning all year where he gave up more than one hit. That’s as shutdown as it gets). Venters has had a slightly “off” season after being unhittable last year, but still greater than a K an inning. O’Flaherty has been fantastic and could give you an inning. Younger guys like Avilan and Gearrin don’t have a ton of experience but have performed excellently for the Braves.

Why wouldn’t you start off a game with (say) Venters going against the top of St. Louis’ order, then bringing in someone like Avilan for the 2nd and 3rd (he’s a 2-inning guy). Bring in O’Flaherty when the big hitters roll around again in the 4th inning, then go with someone like Durbin for the next two innings. You bring in Gearrin for the 7th and 8th, and then you’ve saved Kimbrel for perhaps 4 or 5 out save in the 8th and 9th. And by virtue of the one-game roster setting loophole, this is just the first 7 guys out of the bullpen; one could add in 4-5 more arms as need be.

Honestly, I think this is a winning strategy. Will the Braves (or the Cardinals for that matter) consider employing it? No way; Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez is well known in the baseball press for being “uber traditional” in the way he handles his pitching staff (lots of complaints about his leaving his best arm out there til it is a “save” situation instead of using him in higher leverage situations). And the Braves have already manipulated their rotation to put Medlen in line for a wild card start. Meanwhile St. Louis’ Mike Matheny is a rookie manager and such a strategy as laid out here is basically putting your job on the line for a coin-flip; if it doesn’t work out you’re fired. Tony LaRussa could have pulled this off; he had enough respect and enough history to be given a pass if he tried something radical and it didn’t work out. In fact, if LaRussa was still the manager I’d bet this is exactly what he’d do; we are talking afterall about the guy who essentially invented the modern bullpen.

In the end, it’ll be in the #1 seed’s favor if the Braves burned Medlen. But it’d be great talking fodder if they tried the strategy above.

Kemp reacts to being the first overall pick in my fantasy league. Photo unknown via ladodgertalk.com

As with last year’s edition of this post, feel free to stop reading now if you don’t want to read fantasy team analysis of a league that you’re not necessarily in. I know that really grates some people, and I understand. For those of you who do play fantasy, I’ll try to talk about who was available and who I had to choose from for each pick so you can get a context of the decisions I made.

League overview: 12 team 6×6 head to head. Your categories are:

Hitting: Runs, HRs, RBIs, SBs, Batting Average and OPS.

Pitching: Wins, Saves, K’s, ERA, WHIP and Holds.

Last year we had Losses as a category instead of Holds but too many of the league hated the Losses category, but wanted to keep OPS as a 6th category. So we’ve introduced Holds as a category for the 2012 season. I proposed this but rather inadvertantly; my strategy going into this 2012 season was going to be to go after the exact type of pitcher who normally gets holds; the setup-guy, the excellent specialized reliever who pitchers 60-70 innings but gets 70-80 K’s with excellent ERAs and WHIPs. With no Losses to worry about, the value of holding any type of pitcher increased over last year’s edition of the league. The only downside was that we are also introducing a transaction limit for the season (65 over the 21 week season). So picking good arms early will be crucial.

We added an 11th and 12th team to the league at the last minute, two newer guys to fantasy baseball who made some “interesting” picks throughout the night. I was picking 1st out of the 12 in a typical snake draft order.

My draft strategy for 2012 is as follows:

Get the minimum number of hitters, and get them early to get the best players available.

Focus on Homers. Homers lead to Runs and RBIs, 3 of your 6 offensive categories.

Get a couple of top end starters early, then spend the entire 2nd half of the draft on pitching.

Focus on NL, high K/9 starters only.

Get a high end closer if they’re available, but don’t over spend.

Focus on the high-end Holds leaders and setup guys, getting guys who can close in a pinch.

What became apparent about 5 rounds into the draft is the disservice of drafting 1st (or last) in such a huge league; if a run starts on a position, you have almost no chance of getting any of the top guys. Catchers, top-end Holds guys and top-end Closers all had major runs without my even getting a consideration to get a pick in. Once all the top closers were gone, I decided not to scrounge for saves, at all. If a guy like Rodriguez or Holland becomes a closer and I get free saves, all the better. But what I really want are low ERA, low WHIP innings all week that help lower the overall team ERA/WHIP.

Below are my round-by-round picks. Yahoo O-Ranks are given; this is Yahoo’s rank for the player for the 2012 season. Average Draft Rank (ADR) is listed as per MockDraftCentral’s ratings, though honestly after the Holds guys start going off the board the ADR is mostly useless. Plus ADR reports are based on the classic 5×5 league, not the 6×6 league that we’re doing. But it does illustrate some of the over-drafts and/or value picks I got.

Matt Kemp: (Yahoo #2, ADR #2) With the first overall pick I really was choosing between Kemp and Miguel Cabrera. I liked Cabrera because he’ll be gaining positional flexibility at 3B, a relatively thin position. I also like Cabrera because he’s gaining Prince Fielder to provide lineup protection. However; Kemp was the #1 producer last season, had 39 Hrs to Cabrera’s 30 and threw in 40 steals for good measure. I think Kemp is the best player in baseball and I see no reason that he won’t at least repeat his (near) 40/40 performance. With the understanding that I’ll be missing most of the high end infielders by virtue of not picking again until the 23rd overall pick, I take Kemp. Cabrera’s grounder to the face just a few hours before the draft didn’t really factor into the decision. Ironically Ryan Braun was ADR #1 but he didn’t go until 4th or 5th in our league.

Ian Kinsler: (Yahoo #20, ADR #23). With the 24th pick, I really wanted Curtis Granderson, who was a bit undervalued (Yahoo ranked #22 but 6th best player in 2011), but he got snagged just before I picked. Kinsler was highest guy on the board and was the natural pick. I’ve had Kinsler before and he’s always a solid, mid 20s producer with some consistency. He was hurt in 2010 but in 2009 was a top 10 player. Lets hope for a similar season. 2B is thin (even more so with Chase Utley‘s injury), so I didn’t mind getting a halfway decent one this high.

Giancarlo Stanton: (Yahoo #25, ADR #26): With the 25th pick, I reached a little bit for Stanton. I didn’t want to go with slighly higher ranked guys like Mark Teixeira and certainly not Hanley Ramirez (who Itook #2 overall last year and absolutely killed my team). Cliff Lee (Yahoo #24) should have been there but was drafted incredibly early by one of the new guys in the league. So, faced with a slew of positional guys after Stanton on the Yahoo chart who all under performed last year (Beltre, McCutchen, Wright) and therefore were not worth the draft position, I took a gamble on Stanton. Personally I think this guy is going to be one of the biggest names in the game; a 45 homer guy who helps bring his team back to relevance. Unfortunately I wasn’t aware that he’s been dinged up in Spring Training and now may miss opening day. That’s not good drafting. But i’d rather have him and miss a couple weeks than be frustrated with an injury prone guy.

Tim Lincecum: (Yahoo #28, ADR #24)

Cole Hamels: (Yahoo #32, ADR #29): After 22 more picks, drafting with the 48th and 49th overall pick I was stunned to see two NL heavyweight starters sitting there available for the taking. According to ADR both these guys should have been long gone. Lincecum struggled last year clearly, but Hamels overperformed based on his Yahoo ranking (#21 performer in 2011) and fit my profile of an NL starter with good stats. No argument here; I took the two leading starters available. Its like a repeat of 2011: I had both these starters last year and I’m looking forward to having them both again this year.

Brett Lawrie (Yahoo #45, ADR #53): With the 72nd overall pick I again got great value in Lawrie. At this point I had not drafted either a 3B or a 1B, having missed out on the first couple of tiers of both. I had a 1B targeted (see pick #8) so I went for an upside pick. Lawrie had 9 homers in just 150 ABs in 2011 and based on his minor league production he seems set to be a monster hitter in this league. Based on who was left on the board at that position at this time (Mark Reynolds, David Frese, Martin Prado) I went with the best available guy. That being said, Lawrie is a risk. I’m slightly worried that 2 of my top 4 hitters are relatively young guys who could go south; this strategy failed me last year (when Jason Heyward and Pedro Alvarez both underperformed so badly that I had to drop them).

Alex Gordon; (Yahoo #66, ADR #61): Right after Lawrie with the 73rd overall pick, I was scanning down the available hitters, with an eye on 2011 performance, I was amazed again to find a near top 20 guy from last year. Gordon was ranked #23 in 2011 performance but was still on the board. I grabbed him. 23 Homers, 87 rbi along with 17 steals and I think this is a halfway decent pick. He takes my last OF spot.

Lance Berkman: (Yahoo #86, ADR #95); With the 96th pick I nabbed Berkman. Waiting until the 8th round to find a first baseman is not usually a good strategy … but it has served me well in the past. Instead of overpaying for one of the top 1Bs, I like to wait and get nearly as good a player but many rounds below. Last year it was Paul Konerko (who I would have loved to get again but Jamos snapped him up a few rounds earlier) so this year I targeted Berkman. Another undervalued pick (his 2011 yahoo ranking: 32) who qualifies at both OF and 1B but who will be playing the far less taxing 1B position fulltime in 2012. Because of this shift to the infield, i’m hoping for a healther season and more ABs. Berkman proved last year he can still hit, and with a relatively decent lineup still around him he should still see pitches to hit despite the Cardinals losing Pujols. 31 homers last year in just 488 ABs; he could broach 40 if he gets 600 Abs like he should.

Jimmy Rollins: (Yahoo #73, ADR #88). 97th overall, still continuing to get value. Rollins isn’t the best SS out there, but by the 9th round he’s as good as you’re going to get. He was a decent producer in 2011 but is a far cry from his 2007-2009 numbers (when in consecutive seasons he was the 5th, 9th and 12th ranked fantasy player). He has some power, 30 SB capability and a decent bat. With the Phillies injury concerns, perhaps more RBI opportunities will fall to Rollins.

Joe Mauer (Yahoo #95, ADR #82). At the 120th pick, I was missing two positional players: a catcher and a utility guy. I’ve been burned in the past drafting catchers too high, and frankly am happy to roll the dice with the recovering Mauer. Mauer has positional flexibility of qualifying for 1B if needed but what I really need is for him to be in the lineup and hitting. If Mauer returns anywhere close to his 2009 form (#12 fantasy producer) this will be the steal of the draft.

Josh Johnson (Yahoo #101, ADR #99). More value, but also more risk, with the #121 pick. Johnson fits my profile of high K NL starters … but of course is coming off of a major arm injury. Is he ready to go? If he’s healthy, this is a 4th or 5th round talent way down in the 11th. If not … well there’s always the waiver wire.

Drew Stubbs: (Yahoo #92, ADR #79). With the 144th pick I needed one last hitter to supplement my bench and noticed the huge number of SBs that Stubbs had last year (40). He was decently ranked for value and I think this is a pretty decent pick. The ADR of 79 probably is skewed higher because in a 5×5 league steals are more important. But Steals are important here as well, and looking at this team i’ve got a ton of them. Big fan of this pick here.

Mike Adams. Pick #145 and the beginning of my main 2012 strategy; focus on setup guys who get holds and have good peripherals. By the 13th round the top Holds guys from 2011 (Clippard, Venters, Robinson, and Marshall) were all gone; I was most disappointed to have missed on Robinson in particular, who went just a few picks before I went. I grabbed Adams as the best holds guy available. (note from here on out I won’t bother with Yahoo ranks or ADRs for Holds guys since they doesn’t make any sense).

Ricky Romero: (Yahoo #109, ADR #86): At this point in the draft I was targeting a few more starters and a few more setup guys and went for best players available. but getting a guy of Romero’s caliber with the 168th pick is great. Romero isn’t entirely my kind of starter; he’s AL, and more importantly he’s AL East. But his K/9 is improved and he’s a good pitcher on a team that will get wins. He had 15 wins last year with a sub 3.00 ERA; imagine if he pitched in the NL. Regardless, he’s a good pickup at this point in the draft.

Francisco Rodriguez: I like K-Rod because, well, if Milwaukee’s closer (John Axford) falters or gets hurt, suddenly I’ve got a pretty good closer getting saves. As it stands, Rodriguez will get a ton of Hold opportunities and has all the incidentals I want in a back-end reliever (good K/9, good holds from 2011). The only downside on him is his ERA; its a bit high for an 8th inning guy.

Fernando Salas: Salas was St. Louis’ closer for most of 2011 but got demoted after a couple of blown saves in August. He didn’t get demoted because his numbers were bad; in fact his 2011 numbers were great. Unfortunately for Salas, Jason Motte lit it up in the post season and enters 2012 with the job clearly in hand. Which means, like Rodriguez, he’ll get save opportunities as the former closer and would be the presumptive replacement in case of injury or ineffectiveness.

Jeremy Hellickson (Yahoo #183, ADR #127); Going against my better judgement, I picked up yet another AL East pitcher, but once again went for value. Hellickson was my 193rd pick and despite being Yahoo ranked 183, he was 86th in performance in 2011. Lots of people think Hellickson will regress in 2012 because of his amazingly low BABIP (.223 in 2011). However not all of Hellickson’s BABIP variation is attributed to “luck;” He’s a flyball pitcher. And flyball pitchers will have more of their balls in play caught, keeping BABIP low. Hellickson had only 35% of balls in play be grounders in 2011. Roy Halladay, by way of comparison, has been 50% or more groundballs every year of his career. Where this should be catching up to Hellickson is in homers given up (more fly balls should lead to more homers), but his home ballpark helps. Either way. I’ll take him with the 193rd pick.

Mark Melancon: Another deposed closer in Melancon, who got 20 saves for Houston last year but joins Boston as the presumptive 8th inning guy behind Andrew Bailey. Remember; Bailey missed 2 months in 2011 with a forearm strain; Melancon ably fits into the closer spot. This pick may be affected by recent news that Daniel Bard will be returning to the bullpen, but holds guys don’t have to be 8th inning guys.

Greg Holland: What a find here; Holland has fantastic numbers and could be another steal since KC closer Soria has blown out his elbow. I don’t think Holland gets the call as the closer immediately, but if new acquisition Broxton doesn’t step up Holland will.

Alexi Ogando (Yahoo #227, ADP #208); Looking for two more starters I went for best names on the board. Ogando may not be the best but he’ll get Ks and he has a big arm. And at the 240th pick of the night I’m happy to get a 13 game winner on a playoff team.

Josh Collmenter (Yahoo #312, ADP #305): I don’t understand why Collmenter is so low; he plays in the weaker NL West, is in the NL, and won 10 games with good numbers last year (#140 ranked yahoo fantasy in 2011). Oh; just found out why; he’s got a 14.00 ERA in Spring Training thus far. Ouch. We’ll keep an eye on his first couple starts (perhaps sitting him if he’s going against a touch lineup) and see how he goes.

Team analysis

Hitters: I’ve got a ton of power, but also a ton of SB capability. Kemp is 40/40 guy, Kinsler and Lawrie project to be 30/30 and Gordon a 20/20 guy. Rollins and Stubbs both get a ton of steals. I’ve got 5 guys with 30+ homer capability. Homers lead to runs and RBIs. What may hurt me is AVG and OPS: Kinsler, Stanton and Stubbs all seem to be .250 hitters. Rollins and Stubbs both are < .800 OPS guys. So we’ll take the good with the bad. But I do like my hitters.

Name

Team

Pos

O-rank

2011 Actual

Owned

H/AB

R

HR

RBI

SB

AVG

OPS

Lance Berkman

StL

1B,OF

86

32

97%

147/488

90

31

94

2

0.301

0.959

Ian Kinsler

Tex

2B

20

22

99%

158/620

121

32

77

30

0.255

0.832

Brett Lawrie

Tor

3B

45

771

97%

44/150

26

9

25

7

0.293

0.953

Joe Mauer

Min

C,1B

95

820

97%

85/296

38

3

30

0

0.287

0.728

Matt Kemp

LAD

OF

2

1

99%

195/602

115

39

126

40

0.324

0.985

Giancarlo Stanton

Mia

OF

25

66

99%

135/516

79

34

87

5

0.262

0.893

Alex Gordon

KC

OF

66

23

98%

185/611

101

23

87

17

0.303

0.878

Jimmy Rollins

Phi

SS

73

67

97%

152/567

87

16

63

30

0.268

0.737

Drew Stubbs

Cin

OF

92

103

93%

147/604

92

15

44

40

0.243

0.685

Pitchers: I’m less liking my starters versus what I had last year. I have three good NL guns but then have three #2/#3 AL starters. And I have a big injury risk in Johnson to go with spring dismal performances out of Collmenter. I may be playing some waiver wire games.

Name

Team

Pos

O-rank

2011 Actual

Owned

IP

W

SV

K

HLD

ERA

WHIP

Tim Lincecum

SF

SP

28

49

99%

217

13

0

220

0

2.74

1.21

Cole Hamels

Phi

SP

32

21

99%

216

14

0

194

0

2.79

0.99

Josh Johnson

Mia

SP

101

183

97%

60.1

3

0

56

0

1.64

0.98

Ricky Romero

Tor

SP

109

46

95%

225

15

0

178

0

2.92

1.14

Jeremy Hellickson

TB

SP

183

86

86%

189

13

0

117

0

2.95

1.15

Alexi Ogando

Tex

SP

227

131

68%

169

13

0

126

0

3.51

1.14

Josh Collmenter

Ari

SP,RP

312

140

21%

154.1

10

0

100

0

3.38

1.07

The middle relief/holds strategy should be interesting; with a transaction limit in place we’re going to have to monitor the 5 RPs closely. I’m not after saves (clearly; having not drafted a single closer) but I wouldn’t mind getting a few here and there. I have tried the no-closer route in the past; it didn’t work exactly as I wanted. I had too many mediocre starters and got killed in ERA and WHIP. This time around is slightly different; by focusing on middle relievers who generally have great stats, I’m hoping to keep ERA and WHIP down and continually add Ks and holds.